Arizona inmate, fiancee make first appearance in court

by Glen Creno - Aug. 21, 2010 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

An Arizona forest ranger who found the dangerous prison escapee being hunted for weeks across the West was hailed as a hero for his role, but he shunned the media limelight for fear of his own personal safety.

As attempted-murderer John McCluskey and his fiancee, Casslyn Welch, suspected of being his accomplice, made their first appearances in an Apache County court Friday after being captured at a remote campground, the man who recognized them and called in law-enforcement officials remained an anonymous figure. Officials say the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests ranger wants to keep his identity secret to prevent retaliation from the prisoners' families.

Police and the head of the U.S. Forest Service praised the ranger, who came across the violent fugitives Thursday afternoon at a campground near Sunrise Ski Resort in eastern Arizona and had a brief conversation with one of them before tipping off officers to their whereabouts.

"He was heads-up and had great situational awareness," said Julia Faith Rivera, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service in Springerville.

Tom Tidwell, head of the Forest Service, said the ranger's alert actions led to a "quick, safe diffusion of a potentially explosive situation."

"I consider this guy to be a hero," Tidwell said.

The ranger was checking out what appeared to be an abandoned campfire around 4 p.m. Thursday when he came across McCluskey and Welch. The ranger had noticed a gray Nissan Sentra the couple appeared to have tried to conceal in the trees, and he called in the license-plate number.

Authorities said the New Mexico plate came back as stolen. As they came to realize it likely was the fugitive pair, Apache County sheriff's officials organized a raid on the campground three hours later.

When a SWAT team descended on the campsite at dusk, Welch reached for a weapon but dropped it when she realized she was outgunned, officers said, and the couple surrendered without a fight. They were taken to jail in St. Johns, where they were being held on $1 million bond each on charges from Mohave County, where the escape took place.

After his arrest, a shirtless, tattoo-covered McCluskey made a chilling statement to authorities, that he should have killed the forest ranger during their brief conversation.

McCluskey and two other dangerous inmates escaped from a private prison near Kingman on July 30. Officials suspect Welch helped.

The escape set off a national manhunt that led an army of investigators down various blind alleys as they chased false sightings. The couple, authorities said, considered themselves a modern-day version of Bonnie and Clyde, notorious gangsters from the 1930s.

McCluskey, 45, was serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm, and he previously did time in Pennsylvania related to a string of armed robberies in the 1990s.

The other escapees, Tracy Province and Daniel Renwick, were serving time for murder.

Renwick was captured Aug. 1 in Colorado after a gunfight with police. Province was arrested without incident Aug. 9 in Wyoming after a tip to police.

Law-enforcement officers are not certain when McCluskey and Welch returned to Arizona, but the Associated Press reported that the couple stopped at one point in Eagar to fix a tire.

On Friday, McCluskey and Welch had initial court appearances in Apache County Superior Court in St. Johns. They face numerous felony charges filed in a Kingman court, including escape, kidnapping, armed robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Those charges stem from a kidnapping at gunpoint of two truck drivers who told authorities they were forced to drive some of the escapees to Flagstaff.

Province, McCluskey and Welch also have been linked to the post-escape slaying of Gary and Linda Haas of Tecumseh, Okla. The burned bodies of the couple were found in a travel trailer Aug. 4 on a remote ranch in New Mexico.

New Mexico authorities were among those investigating the Apache County arrest scene Friday. Apache County sheriff's officials said they had received no charges from New Mexico before the pair's court appearance Friday.

According to Apache County officials, arresting officers confiscated guns Thursday from the couple, and those could prove valuable to the New Mexico murder investigation.

Sheriff's Cmdr. James Womack said McCluskey made a reference during his arrest to a gun used in the New Mexico killings.

"He said the gun he used to kill those people was in the tent" at the campsite where the couple were found, Womack said.

The arrests ended a dragnet that spread over much of the West. Investigators looked into 700 tips from nearly every state, the U.S. Marshals Service in Phoenix said. The last credible sightings before the pair's arrest came on Aug. 6 in Billings, Mont.

"I've worked on many fugitive cases, but none of this stature," said Tom Henman of the Marshals Service.